Picture Perfect
by fairwinds09
Summary: She waits for the cards to arrive in the mail, if only to see their faces once again.


_Hello again...I know, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. In answer to any questions, yes, "Power of Darkness" is still on hiatus. I've started working on it again over the holidays, but no new chapters yet. However, I have become re-addicted to TVD over the past couple of weeks, and this is the result. _

_Hope you enjoy!_

Elena sends her postcards every month or so. Sometimes they're pictures of ancient cities, basking under heavy sunlight, lighting up the night sky with neon dots and flashing signs. Sometimes they're little paintings on heavy paper, street artist drawings of places she will never go. Sometimes they're landscapes, exotic and beautiful, lush trees and blue water and heat swirling up from the sand. No matter what they are, she always turns them over immediately to register the elegant script on the back. The handwriting has changed a little over the last few years, become more confident, more assured, but it's still the writing of the girl who was her best friend since they were two.

Caroline tries to find comfort in that.

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The first card came two weeks after the night that Mystic Falls erupted in flame and terror, shrieks piercing the sky, fear coursing like water through the gutters, sinking like rain into the earth. The night that she began this long journey through the world of life after death. She deliberately blanks out most of the memories, buries them under the reality of _vampire_, immortal and beautiful and breathing air she doesn't need. But she still remembers the look on Stefan's face when he realized that Katherine was back in town, remembers the edge in Damon's voice when he told her that the risk was too great to let them stay. They made her promise to keep their secret, asked her to look after the Boarding House. They promised in return that they'd lead Katherine away from Mystic Falls, protect the people left behind. Promised they'd find a way to end her, if they could.

They didn't promise anything about Elena.

She should have known then, she thinks. Should have realized what was happening. Should have seen what had been before her the entire time. She knew that Elena was torn between the two of them, light and deception on the one side and dark edge of truth on the other. But she never thought her best friend would choose one brother over another, never thought she could handle the unvarnished honesty inherent in the one she chose. She would never want the simple soul. But she did, she has, and Caroline has spent the better part of five years contemplating why.

She thinks it's mostly because the human heart is more capricious than even Fate.

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The second was postmarked from Cartagena, and she spent a few hours thinking of time-worn streets and lazy winds blowing in off the ocean. They were all safe, Elena wrote, staying together in a little hotel about a mile away from the shore. There had been no sign of Katherine yet. She missed home, but she was doing fine.

The next one was short, only two lines: _she's found us. we're on the run. _

Caroline suspects that it began then, the night that Katherine burst through the door of their hotel room, fangs bared, lips dripping from the security guard crumpled on the ground outside. The night she told them about Klaus and the doppelganger, the power of sacrifice and the centuries of running from death. The moment she told them that she would hunt them down no matter where they ran or how long they hid. The night she claimed Stefan as her own.

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Two months, three, four more before she got another card in the mail. She was half out of her mind with worry, wondering if all three were dead, or worse. Wondering if Katherine had made good on her threats, wondering how you could possibly elude someone who was smarter, faster, and meaner in nearly every regard.

This one was short, too. It was also not in Elena's handwriting. In the flowing script from another era, heavy black strokes on white cardboard, Damon told her that Stefan had left them, trying to leave a false trail for Katherine. They hadn't heard from him in over two months.

The card was postmarked from Argentina.

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Over the next year or so they kept coming, mostly from Elena, though occasionally Damon would add a postscript with instructions for the Boarding House. They were all over the place—Australia, the South Pacific, India, a short stint in Russia, carefully avoiding the Middle East. Elena wrote her once that she'd made Damon avoid Europe. She wanted Europe to be special, not part of the desperate flight from Katherine. She never mentioned Stefan anymore.

Over time, they'd both become more crafty. The cards never held a return address, and they were always in simple white envelopes of heavy paper so that no one could read through the covering. There was never anything remotely personal about them—save for the handwriting—until nearly eight months had gone by. They were in Hawaii, or so the card said, and one of them had slipped a snapshot in behind the postcard. It was of Elena in a fire-engine red bikini, standing ankle-deep in the surf. Her hair was still long, glistening in the island sun, but she looked a little thinner, more fragile somehow. Her eyes were hidden behind huge, oversized sunglasses.

Caroline had never seen her smile like that before.

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Two more years worth of snapshots lie in her right-hand dresser drawer, a secret from everyone she knows. Two years of silence, of memories, of waiting. Two years on tenterhooks as she graduated, went to college, fought and broke up with and still loved Tyler. Two years of learning to live with the impossible, and wondering how Elena did it too.

Midway through the third year, the snapshots change. The first one comes in the dead of winter, about two weeks before Christmas. There's a picture of a snow-lined street on the front, glowing with lamplight, holly bordering the windows and hanging over the doorframes. On the back, they've both written a message, right beneath the tiny printing that reads "Cologne, Germany." Elena wishes her a Merry Christmas and tells her there will be a package for her in the mail. Damon tells her to make sure the chimneys on the Boarding House are swept and asks her if she's snacked on any soccer moms lately.

This time, the snapshot is of both of them.

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From that point on, all the pictures have both Damon and Elena in them. They're in Europe for a year, traveling everywhere—Oxford, Paris, Venice, Berlin, sleepy little towns in Provence, glittering nightlife in Prague. She is glowing, beautiful, though there's a shadow in her eyes that Caroline doesn't like. Damon is the same as ever, sinfully handsome, dark hair tousled around his face, but she thinks she sees something different in the lines around his mouth, the tension that's always tightening his eyes. He looks a little more…relaxed, she tells herself.

She doesn't want to say the words "in love."

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She doesn't realize how right she is until one May morning when she goes out her door to collect the mail and sees the familiar white envelope poking out of the stack lying in her box. She tears it open eagerly, fingers shaking a little. It's been a bad week—the full moon is coming and Tyler's been on edge for days, bad temper culminating in the huge fight they had last night. She could use a little normality right now, and it doesn't even occur to her that this is what her normal has become.

This time the postcard is from Venice (again, because both of them have fallen in love with this city), and she's momentarily taken in by the picture of gold-tinged waterways winding through ancient houses and slow-rotting wharves. The message is what she's come to expect—they're doing well, Italy is beautiful this time of year, and would she please turn on the air conditioning in the Boarding House the next time she's in Mystic Falls? As always, there is no mention of Katherine, or of Stefan.

It's the snapshot that catches her attention—for the first time in over fourteen months, it's of only Elena. And the pose is different. This is not a traditional tourist stance, smiling at the camera before the backdrop of some famous monument or landmark. This is more intimate, more revealing, more…romantic, she breathes quietly to herself. It's Elena, leaning against a balcony, the setting sun outlining her figure in golds and sepias. Her face is turned toward the camera, over her shoulder, and she's looking back in a way that Caroline recognizes, a look she's seen on her own face time and time again.

It's the look of a woman who is falling, and doesn't care.

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She doesn't know what to think of that shot, tries to force it out of her head. She knew from the time that they stopped writing of Stefan what had happened—what had to have happened. She knows where he is, though she couldn't pinpoint his location on a map. He may be lying to himself, telling himself he's doing this for Damon, for Elena, for everyone he loves and wants to keep safe. But she knows the truth.

Two weeks later, another card arrives. This one has no picture on the front, no printed label on the back. It's in Damon's writing, and the hastily scrawled words on plain cardboard are straight and to the point. They've heard from Katherine, at long last. She has not betrayed them to Klaus—not yet. She's living in the States. And she's with Stefan.

That last line is the one that grabs Caroline by the throat and refuses to let her go.

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The next month is an agony of anticipation, wondering if they're still in danger, wondering if they're coming home, wondering if Katherine will actually keep her word this time. If Stefan was what she really wanted (and secretly Caroline thinks he is), then Damon and Elena are safe. But if Katherine is threatened, she will have no qualms about betraying anyone she knows to save her own skin. They are not safe as long as she is alive.

It is five weeks to the day from their last card that she gets the newspaper clipping of the accident report in the mail. A man in his early thirties, a woman in her early twenties, burned beyond recognition in a car wreck on the Autobahn. The officials surmise that whoever was driving took a turn too fast and spun the vehicle out of control.

On the back are scrawled two words: _coming home_.

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She meets them at the Boarding House, walking up the familiar steps with shallow breath and a jittery stomach. It's been so long since she's seen either of them, and so much has happened in between. She thinks to herself that this isn't Elena anymore, not the Elena she knew six years ago in Mystic Falls. She wonders if Damon has turned her yet. She reminds herself to not expect this to be the same.

They're sitting in the front of the fire when she lets herself in the front door, and they turn as one to greet her. She's surprised by how in tune they are, how comfortable. The Elena she knew was always a little on edge around Damon, and he was always just a little afraid of her. The couple in front of her has been through more than she cares to imagine, has faced obstacles she does not even want to think about. It has changed them, she muses. Time always leaves its mark.

Elena runs to greet her, and Caroline can tell instantly that she is still human. It's been so long, but she can still see traces of the friend she knew in the gorgeous woman standing before her, blood pounding through her veins.

"Caroline," she murmurs as she wraps both arms around her and holds her, tight. Damon comes to stand behind her, waiting for her to finally let go before he leans in to kiss Caroline's cheek, Continental-style.

"I thought you'd have turned her long before now," she tells Damon, raising an eyebrow at him. He gives her a dirty look and cups Elena's shoulders in both hands.

"We've been waiting until I got a little older," Elena explains. "We didn't want Damon to get arrested every time we're out in public together."

He smiles a little, that cocky quirk of the lips that has women falling at his feet in droves, and Caroline can't help but remember how she succumbed to that fatal charm so many years ago.

"We came back to tell you goodbye," Elena tells her, voice laced with a tinge of regret. "We're going to Canada for a few years. Damon wanted to spend some time in Quebec."

Caroline nods. There are plenty of quiet spots in the Canadian wilderness for a fledgling vampire to learn her own strength, plenty of bright lights for the times when both of them will tire of the silence and want to come out and play. They will do well there, until it is time for them to move on.

"What about the Originals?" she asks, point-blank. If there's one thing being a vampire has taught her, it is that you cannot fear your own questions anymore.

Damon shrugs a little, easy and polished in his black leather jacket.

"Katherine assured us that they bought our cover story," he says, calmly. "And that she will alert us if they go back on the hunt again."

Caroline nods again. There is no need to ask about Stefan. She saw that one coming a long time ago.

"I'll look after the house for you as long as I can," she volunteers. "Tyler and I are living about an hour away. It won't be hard for me to come back to check on things."

Damon smiles a little, a silent thank-you.

"We'd better be going," he tells Elena. "I booked a late flight, and I hate compelling security guards at airports."

She rolls her eyes at him and picks up her purse from the couch. For a moment she stops and stares at one of her oldest friends, her eyes clouded with memories, heavy as the mist rising from the ground outside. There's so much between them—sandbox toys and prom dresses and memories of blood and terror, and it's almost impossible to let go of the one person in her life who still remembers how she used to be. But she cannot stay, and she knows it.

"We'll keep in touch," she offers, and wraps her arms around Caroline again before joining Damon at the door. "I'll send you a return address this time."

Caroline smiles.

"I'll write you."

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She gets the card in the mail two weeks later, in a different envelope this time. It's a hand-painted scene of snow-capped mountains on the front, and she grins a little at the schmaltziness of the gesture. She'd be willing to bet good money that Damon picked out the stationery.

The picture on the inside is of both of them, two beautiful creatures perfectly matched in every regard. They're standing in front of a small cabin half-covered in snow. There's a glint of gold on Elena's fourth finger and a newfound wisdom in her eyes. She has chosen, Caroline thinks. He will always be her first choice.

It's dark outside by the time she finishes reading, and she stares out at her own reflection in the glass windowpane for a long time after she sets the card down on her desk. It has not been an easy life for her, and she doubts it will be for Elena either. She thinks back to something Elena told her years ago, when she and Stefan were first falling for each other…_when you love someone, you're willing to do whatever it takes to stay with them. Even if that means forever._

She has found her someone, it seems. And so Caroline smiles as she props the card upright on her desk and looks carefully at the address inscribed on the inside of the front cover. They will be all right. They always have been.

She picks up her pen.


End file.
